Theme Park Review

Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 6:51 pm

by ILoveRides

Dark Harbor is back at The Queen Mary for 2016! This year there are 6 mazes, including the all-new “Intrepid,” and some other interesting new additions. We were there on media night to check out what’s in store for this year’s event. Check out our full report below!

We’re at Dark Harbor to see what’s in store for 2016!

We were greeted at the entrance by this year’s new character, The Iron Master, along with The Captain and The Ringmaster.

As the gates opened, monsters burst out into the crowd.

Dark Harbor always has a ton of cool characters.

Graceful Gale is one of our favorites!

Dark Harbor is no slouch when it comes to entertainment. There are tons of shows and performers to interact with throughout the entire night.

Intrepid is this year’s brand new maze! We headed there first!

You enter the maze by boarding a steam train.

The conductor greets your group and hurries you along.

Your group then gets split up. Some are sent up a flight of stairs, while others continue on towards a foggy hallway.

There are some tight spaces you need to navigate.

Watch out, the monsters crawl out from under fences to get you!

This was my favorite scene in the maze. An anchor is being cast from molten iron.

Check out our video of Intrepid!:

Next we headed to Soulmate!

A young Graceful Gale greeted us. Upon hearing that I was an eligible bachelor, she asked if I’d join her for a nightcap later.

Apparently Gale doesn’t treat potential suitors very nicely though.

She’s trying to find the perfect man.

Photos of men adorn the walls with the features she likes circled.

Ahhh! Gale is chopping up her suitors and reassembling their pieces into the perfect man!

Have a heart, Gale!

Watch out, her minions are there to help her find and dissect potential suitors.

While the maze is still great, the iconic ballroom dance finale scene was removed this year. That scene was a great ending to the maze, so we missed seeing it!

After Soulmate we headed to the entrance to catch the grand opening for the public! Draven was there to entertain us by hammering a nail into his face!

Spears even got to pull the nail out!

The gates opened to a rush of monsters, and Dark Harbor 2016 was officially underway!

We love all the performers at Dark Harbor. So many of the characters have special talents and rich backstories. This gives the characters much more personality than we see at other haunts. They aren’t just actors who jump out at you, it’s as if they’re real inhabitants of the haunted harbor!

Next up, Circus! This maze has lots of improvements this year to keep it fresh.

We happened to catch the Ringmaster meandering through the props in the queue.

Lets go in!

Pick a door, any door!

Ball pit + creepy clown = awesome!

There’s a full mirror maze midway through.

The maze ends with a disorienting spinning tunnel.

Take a trip to the Circus! Here's our video of the maze:

We love the Ringmaster!

Here’s Twirly entertaining Spears with some tap dancing.

They both did a big dance number together. It’s great that you can just walk up to characters at Dark Harbor and have moments like this!

Next up, Lullaby.

The maze begins with a funeral for Scary Mary, who still haunts the maze.

She just wants to play!

Those are some creepy toys.

Next lets check out B340.

There are creepy people…

And tight spaces.

In the darkness the old metal staircases of the ship are scary on their own!

No thank you!

Here's our video of B340!:

Back on dry land, we headed towards Deadrise!

You enter the wreckage of Deadrise, a WWII escort ship.

The ghosts of sailors haunt the wreckage.

Fog, fire, and water impede your journey through the ship.

Some new improvements this year include a scene where you may find it hard to find your way out!

Spears was nice and tucked in the creepy ghost sailor so he could get some sleep!

The maze ends with a blinding fog-filled tunnel where you aren’t alone!

We enjoyed this show featuring fire swallowing and other daring fire stunts.

There was a slider show as well!

They did lots of neat tricks!

New this year is Panic 4d!

This $5 up-charge movie was really fun! The audience seemed to love it.

You board the Queen Mary, but it quickly mutates into a ship of horrors!

There are lots of scares and surprises!

The Freaks & Oddities Sideshow up-charge returns this year as well!

There are lots of strange things to see in the Sideshow.

Of course there are freaks too!

Be careful, The White Ghost lurks in the fog!

After the Sideshow mini-maze you can watch some freaks perform on stage.

And there are some photo-ops as well.

We had a great time at Dark Harbor 2016. With a solid cast of mazes, shows, entertainment, and characters, Dark Harbor is always a great event and is one of our favorites in So Cal! We definitely recommend checking it out!

Thanks to the folks at Queen Mary Dark Harbor for inviting us, and thanks to you for reading our report! Dark Harbor runs through October 31, don’t miss it!

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:06 am

by cfc

I need to do an October SoCal trip. Been too long since my last visit to Knott's Scary Farm, and Dark Harbor looks pretty cool.

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 5:00 pm

by robbalvey

It's kind of a shame this haunt doesn't get more notice and seems to fly under the radar every year. Those mazes look AWESOME! I love how they do more than just jump scares or pre-recorded dialogue and audio triggers. There are small encounters with actors in the mazes and some of them follow along with you. In many ways, this sort of interaction is WAY better than what a park like Universal does which is just the same kind of triggered audio scare over and over and over again. I wish I could make it out this one year...

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:28 am

by Jew

Super excited to finally check it out on Wednesday. It usually ends up as my favorite of the big haunts because the monsters all use make up (no masks), they do things the major haunts could never get away with (such as the ball pit), and let the monsters all have their own unique styles (my favorite last year was a street monster girl who was silent and just followed you playing a creepy song on a violin. So simple yet incredibly effective!)

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 1:08 am

by ILoveRides

^ The violin lady is still there!

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:46 pm

by RAWKIN_coaster38

Wow, GREAT TR! This Haunt looks absolutely amazing! I was blown away by the scare talent as shown in your pictures and video, it really does look like they go above and beyond in putting their personal flair into it. I really liked the clowns and their misdirection, that was awesome. The make-up and costumes there look killer as well! Definitely going to hit this up next time I'm in SoCal during Haunt season!

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:12 pm

by jray21

I have got to do this one of these years. It looks amazing!

Re: Queen Mary Dark Harbor 2016 Media Night!

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:28 am

by Jew

Checked it out Wednesday...definitely think Queen Mary offers the best bang for the buck (costco had a deal for two tickets including front of line for $77 and there is also goldstar tickets available at a discount if you didn't want FOL)! The mazes set design isn't as high quality as you'll find at Knott's or Universal, but they make up for it with tight/dark spaces and monsters really into their roles (and all makeup!).

Wednesday night they also had a "sliders unite" event that had monsters from Knott's and HHN roaming the streets and participating in the slider show. That was neat!